The Comic Book Killer. Richard A. Lupoff
Jack Glessner. He owns Cape ’n’ Dagger. It’s a comics and mystery bookstore. He’s on Diamond Street in the city, and he has branches in Los Angeles, Sacramento, Modesto, and Santa Barbara. Are you going to call him?”
“I’m going to visit him.”
“Uh, don’t tell him I gave you his name, okay? I mean, uh, we’re not enemies or anything like that. It’s just that, uh, I used to work for him before I opened my own store and he’s kind of, uh, annoyed about that.”
Lindsey said, “Okay, kid. I’ll tell him I got his name out of the Yellow Pages.”
* * * *
Mother was a lot better that night, in fact she cooked supper for them, just like the old days. While they ate, Bart asked her about Father.
“We hardly knew each other,” she said. “Don’t you remember him, Hobo?”
Lindsey thought, my own mother, calling me by the name I hate. Well, there was no point in trying to change her. He was grateful for the times when she was coherent at all.
“He died before I was born, Mother. You remember that.”
She looked vague. “Died?”
Maybe it had been a mistake for Lindsey to raise the subject, but here he was involved with comic books, and Father had been a comics illustrator. Maybe he was just making conversation, but also, maybe, there was something Mother would say that would bring this matter together. Something that would give him a clue that would lead him to the stolen comics.
He reached across the table and put his hand on Mother’s.
She came back into focus and said, “We met at art school. I wasn’t very talented, I just loved to draw and paint. No,” she shook her head, “I didn’t even love to draw and paint. I enjoyed it, that was all. You could tell the ones who really loved art. The really good ones always said that loving it was the most important thing. Even more important than being talented. So I didn’t really love it. Doing it wasn’t that important to me. But I enjoyed the atmosphere. Oh, those were such days, Hobo, you should have seen us.
“We were all so serious! You’d just laugh today, but we were so happy! The boys used to wear berets and little beards, the girls wore baggy sweaters and big skirts and black stockings, and we’d take the Key train across the bridge on Saturdays and drink wine in North Beach and listen to jazz and talk and talk until morning. The city was so wonderful, it was thrilling just to be there, just to be part of everything that was going on.
“They were fighting in Korea, but we didn’t care much about it, we had our own little world. And then—and then—”
She started to cry. Lindsey felt uncomfortable—he never knew what to do when a woman cried. But Mother’s hand was still in his and she clutched him tightly and picked up her paper napkin in her other hand and started to wipe her eyes.
Lindsey prompted, “Was Father drawing comic books then?”
She sniffed and nodded. She let go of his hand and wiped her face with her napkin.
“It was hard for him to get work. Most of the publishers were in New York. They didn’t like out-of-town artists. But he got a little work. He did a few stories and he got to draw one cover. I’ve never seen him so excited as when he got that assignment. You’d think it was for Collier’s or The American Magazine, not some cheap comic book, he was so excited.”
Lindsey knew about that cover. Gangsters at War, number twenty-six, April 1953. A framed copy of it hung in the living room. He had also seen a copy of it in the display case at Comic Cavalcade. He didn’t know what it was doing in the glass case—the drawing was crude, and there were no superheroes in the book or drawings by famous artists.
“Joseph never saw that book. He drew the picture while he was still at school. Then he got drafted. We got married when he came home on leave. It was just before Halloween, I remember all the pumpkins and witches, I always loved Halloween. Then Joseph had to report to his ship, and he was killed three months later, in January. January eighteenth, 1953. Killed when a MiG crashed into his destroyer. They sent me a medal and his insurance money and an American flag. His commanding officer came to see me. And I have you to remember him by, my little Hobo. And another sailor even called me up, all the way from southern California. I tried to talk to him but he was all mixed up and he got me upset so I hung up. You’ll see, Joseph will be proud of you when he gets back. And he’ll have lots of work, they have publishers out here now. Not just the couple they had back then. Lots of them. It’ll be much easier for him. You’ll see, Hobo, you’ll see.”
Sometimes Mother got confused. She was easy enough to handle then, so long as you didn’t quarrel with her. Then she would get angry. If Mrs. Hernández would just remember that, and not disagree when Mother said odd things, she’d get along all right. Lindsey didn’t really want to put her away. She just needed someone to stay with her so she didn’t wander off or get into trouble.
After supper she seemed happy cleaning up and washing the dishes. Lindsey sat down and made two phone calls.
First he tried Cape ’n’ Dagger in San Francisco. He took a chance that there would still be someone there, and he was lucky. “This is Hobart Lindsey, International Surety calling. I’m trying to reach a Mr. Jack Glessner.”
“That’s me.” There was something odd about the voice. Not an accent. More an intonation. As if the man had a limited amount of breath and was rationing the syllables.
“This concerns an insurance claim. I’ll need to discuss it with you, Mr. Glessner.” He expected a quick okay, but he didn’t get it.
“Let me have you number,” Glessner said. “I’ll call you back.”
Lindsey gave him the number.
“Aren’t you working awfully late?” Glessner asked.
“Ah, I brought some work home with me. There’s so much paperwork, you see, and—” He heard the receiver click down.
Lindsey looked in on Mother while he waited for Glessner to call back. He fixed himself a coffee with Bailey’s Irish Cream in it. He sat and thought about Jack Glessner. Why had he been so upset to hear from International Surety?
Maybe Glessner thought he was investigating a claim against Cape ’n’ Dagger. People are always filing claims against retail shops. They trip on the carpet and twist an ankle and don’t even say anything about it. Then they get home and it swells up and they want to sue the store. Things like that. Maybe Glessner thought it was something like that.
Of course, International Surety wasn’t Cape ’n’ Dagger’s carrier, but half of their accounts came through agencies, and the insureds didn’t know or care who the carrier was, they just dealt with the agent.
But also, maybe, it wasn’t that simple.
What if Glessner, or somebody working for him, was the burglar? Patterson had implied that Glessner bore a grudge against him, Patterson had once worked for Glessner and then quit to open his own shop. Glessner could have pulled the burglary for the double motive of picking up a batch of highly valuable merchandise and ruining his ex-employee, now his rival.
And Glessner could act as his own fence. He had the connections, he had the customers, he even owned stores in other cities. Collectors have been known to buy stolen goods even though they knew they were getting hot merchandise. Some collectors are fanatics.
If Glessner had the stolen comics and somebody from International Surety called him up, he certainly would be spooked. He might be headed for SFO and a quick jet to Mexico right now!
The phone rang.
It was Jack Glessner. “Sorry to hold you up,” he said.
Lindsey grunted something intended to sound like, “That’s okay.”
Glessner said, “What’s the problem, Mr. Lindsey? I thought my insurance was in good